One of the many mysteries of travel continues to be how, in the face of such astonishing exchange rates, we all still go to the United Kingdom. In fact, there’s more of us going these days. According to Visit Britain, travel from the U.S. is up 6 percent over 2005. We suspect a lot of this is business travel, but who knows. They’re also all, “spending’s up!” (You think?)

Of course, nobody knows better than these guys – whose job it is to promote travel from our side of things – how many of us are not going, due to the fact that we feel like we’re getting jacked every time we step off the plane and pay double for everything from soy lattes to a taxi ride (excuse us – taxi journey.)

Anyway, in aid of playing the role of consumer advocate, they’ve been putting together all sorts of value/affordable/free information. Some of it is a bit, well, obvious. (Walking around London is free? Wow! How generous of London!)

Other tidbits are more helpful, such as the Venuemasters website, a booking service for university residences all over the country, with plenty of listings. Note: This works best in summer and on academic breaks, of course. For example, you could stay in a modern hall of residence at the London School of Economics for as little as $55 for a single room.

Your best bet is to go to the individual web pages for each school, linked through the site, where availability information is easier to come by than on the main site.

Venuemasters [Site]